16.6 Matter and Concomitant Moral Conditions (KV16.6)

Controverted Point: That material qualities are accompanied by moral conditions.

Theravādin: That is (i.) they must be accompanied by one or more of the six motives or moral conditions, either good or bad; (ii.) they have a mental object or idea, having the properties of mental adverting, adjustment, etc.…

If you admit that disinterestedness, love, and the other four, moral conditions, have a mental object and involve mental adverting, adjustment, etc., then you must describe material qualities in the same terms. And if that be so, you cannot deny either attribute to material qualities without equally denying it to the moral conditions.

Uttarāpathaka: But is not matter in causal relations? You agree. Then it is surely right to say material qualities are accompanied by moral conditions or motives.

The Points of Controversy, an English translation of the Pali Abhidhamma Kathāvatthu. Translated by Shwe Zan Aung and C.A.F. Rhys Davids. First published by Pali Text Society, 1915.

This SuttaCentral edition was prepared by Manfred Wierich and Ven. Vimala and proofread by Josephine Tobin. Some changes were introduced:

Abbreviations, i.e., those of cited works and the participants in the controversies, were expanded.

Cross-references were linked.

Some typographic changes were introduced, among others, i.e.: the phonetic symbol “ŋ” was changed to the Pāli diacritical letter “ṃ”, “ô” to “o”, single quotes to double quotes, and “:—” to “:”.

Letter-spacing with fixed spaces was replaced with bold font.

The corrigenda were merged into the text. Some could not be resolved, though.

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